Gouda Grief, Malaysian Cheese!?

Cheddar, Camembert, Gouda, Gorgonzola, Reblochon… These cheeses, in all their moldy, funky glory have been prevalent throughout our rich history with food, but nowhere else in the world is it more ingrained than in European food culture. Take the little Swiss town of Gruyères for example, in which a certain eponymous cheese has been its economic heartbeat for the past twenty decades. Or walk into any cheese shop in Paris, and you’ll find a steady stream of locals sniffing out and purchasing the rows and rows of Brie de Meaux, creamy Camemberts, funky Époisses, great moldy wheels of Roquefort, and many other suspiciously over-ripened, unlabeled cheeses. Cheese has always been synonymous with European culture, there’s no doubt about that.

In the past decade however, there’s been a quiet cheese revolution pervading through Asia, with artisanal cheesemakers like Liu Yang of China and Tina Khan in India paving the way for a greater appreciation for cheese in their respective countries. In the midst of it all, Malaysia has had its own surge of cheesemakers too, with artisans popping up in Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak, and even Langkawi. Most notably, Annisa Iwan, an Indonesian cheesemaker now residing in Kuala Lumpur, has managed to combine her strong base of European cheesemaking methods with a local agenda (she sources her milk locally, adapts her recipe to the Malaysian climate, and sells her cheese to a largely Malaysian clientele). And through her punnily-named Milky Whey Cheese business, she’s been steadily converting many local cheese doubters into lifelong cheese aficionados.

Full disclaimer: I am one such convert. As a self-professed cheese lover, I initially had large doubts about how cheeses made from the milk of Malaysian cows could ever begin to compare to the great Gouda, Cheddar, and Parmigiano-Reggiano of Europe. But as Annisa has proven, I was dead wrong.

Not only are her cheeses up to par with those stalwart Europe cheeses, her experimental, almost zany, approach to cheesemaking has many Malaysians heaping on praises. Some of her Tomme cheese wheels, for instance, have been spiked with bird’s eye chilies just to kick the piquancy up a notch to satiate the spice-loving Malaysian palate. She’s even infused local produce like bamboo leaves and Sarawak peppers into her cheeses, the latter of which she uses in a soft-style cheese she adoringly named Sarawak.

Raised in Indonesia, Annisa’s indoctrination into the world of cheese started at a young age. Her family had close ties with a Dutch family who visited every winter bearing gifts. “I still remember the three things they [the Dutch family] would bring – chocolate, pâté, and cheese. Those three things, even now, I still cannot live without!” Annisa recalls fondly. Although she no longer keeps in close contact with the Dutch family, those foods, especially cheeses, have clearly left a mark on her very being. Annisa likens it to drugs, saying “[It’s like how] you can’t just introduce crack to somebody and stop giving [it to] them. Cheese is addictive!”

Checking on a young bird's-eye-chilli-infused Tomme cheese wheel. / 查看加入了鸟眼辣椒的多姆奶酪成熟与否

A bird's-eye-chilli infused Tomme cheese wheel. / 一整块已成熟的、加了鸟眼辣椒的多姆奶酪

While she has always been a cheese eater. Annisa’s true cheesemaking obsession came after her honeymoon in Italy, where she had Mozzarella di Bufala for the very first time. To Annisa, those gooey, pillowy mozzarella balls she had in Rome were the epitome of love at first bite. Understandably then, when she returned home, the lackluster faux-mozzarella balls sold at her local supermarkets were never quite able to satisfy her in the same way. Frustrated by this, Annisa resorted to making her very own mozzarella.

Little did she know at the time, she’s picked one of the most temperamental cheeses in the world to make. Heat it too much during the curd formation process and you’ll get empty, watery mozzarella shells; stretch it too much at too low a temperature and the cheese will resemble plastic-y squash balls. After many spectacular failures (which she often turned into halloumi or ricotta) and no end in sight, it was one of her French cheese mentors who pulled her out of this mozzarella spiral and got her working on other, simpler cheeses like the Welsh Caerphilly and Swiss Tomme. That was when her cheese-making prowess truly burgeoned. After mastering these simpler cheeses, Annisa quickly grew confident enough to try her hand at making longer-aging cheeses like Cheddar and Montasio. She then dabbled with making bloomy rind cheeses like Brie and Camembert, and finally came full circle back to mozzarella, which this time around, was a roaring success! And the rest, as they say, is history.

Since the beginning, Annisa’s business has only gone from strength to strength. In 2012, she started by selling her cheeses at festivals and bazaars around Kuala Lumpur and offered cheese-tasting session out of her small home in Mont Kiara. But with a great boom in business over the past two years, she now supplies her cheeses to many top restaurants in the city. Through it all, however, her focus has always been on keeping it personal and artisanal, satisfying all who steps into her home with her warm hospitality and infectious love for the cheesemaking craft. She especially loves introducing her cheeses to (read: blowing the minds of) local Malaysians who’ve never had a whiff of cheese in their lives, and on the other end of the spectrum, European expats craving for a genuine taste of their home country. And as far as I know, she’s never failed to impress.

Well, it’s only a matter of time before all of Kuala Lumpur, if not Malaysia, gets caught up in the heady, funky, but oh-so-addictive world of Annisa’s cheese. So here’s to a cheese-filled, funked-up future for Malaysia! All the Brie-est, Annisa!